Wednesday, 11 March 2015

PPP3 - START UP WEDNESDAYS - NICK SCOTT 1-2-1 SESSION

Today I attended a 1-2-1 session with Nick Scott, an individual who has a wealth of knowledge and experience with the various aspects of setting up businesses within the UK.

BUSINESS PLAN

In preparation for the session I printed off the current version of my business plan so that I could talk through it with Nick to help her get an understanding of my idea and the extent of my current research and development.

The business plan that was taken to the session can be seen in the images below;

Additional to the business plan I also took some supplementary documents to help communicate my idea in an accurate way. As Nick was uninformed of the variations in size and width between a cruiser skateboard and normal skateboard it was hard to visualise what I was describing without the support of a visual example. Therefore, one of the print offs I took to the session which really came in useful when explaining the specifics of my idea was the image of a cruiser deck cut out of the larger skateboard deck.

SESSION NOTES

Overall, the session was very informative and presented me with aspects of starting up a business I had not considered up until this point.

Notes taken during the session with Nick are displayed below;

IMPORTANT POINTS;

Nick had three immediate questions after hearing my business plan;

What is the current size of the skateboard market? (UK)

What is the current size of the skateboard market? (GLOBAL)

Access to old skateboards - how will this be achieved?

Who is the business plan for?

Segmenting a business plan for its target audience is very important, a BP for a bank would include in-depth analysis of costing and profit.

Enterprise Nation - Website offering support for small businesses.

Social enterprise - type of ethical business that donates percentage of profit to charitable or social cause.

Special start up grants & loans available to social enterprise businesses.